By parading its paranoia at the slightest provocation of two inconsequential individuals struggling for attention, India has undervalued its own freedom.

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What the shoppers seek most in the marketplace of martyrdom is an enemy tag. Foolish-or outright paranoid-are the nations that accord them that privilege. India, which has no reason to be foolish or paranoid, has given that status to two desperate characters who have nothing at stake but their desperation to be relevant.

By parading its paranoia at the slightest provocation of two inconsequential individuals struggling for attention, India has undervalued its own freedom.

By parading its paranoia at the slightest provocation of two inconsequential individuals struggling for attention, India has undervalued its own freedom.

First, Delhi Police's charges of sedition against Arundhati Roy. She has every reason to feel rewarded. She should be thrilled. Her crime was a speech on Kashmir, and, if you care to look at the transcript, it is disposable malarkey marinated in shrillness, provocation and naivety. There she goes: "Kashmir has never been an integral part of India"; "Kashmiris can't inhale and exhale without their breath going through the barrel of an AK-47"; India is a "very hollow superpower"; India "became a colonising power the moment it became independent"â€¦ It's the quote-me, book-me plea of a professional conscience keeper who wants to pit herself against the jackboots of the state.

India obliged. India obliged again when it denied a visa to Pervez Musharraf. The home ministry was reportedly worried about his mischief value-particularly about his recent anti-India statements. Really, the North Block mandarins worried about the anti-Indianism of the deposed military dictator, currently an outcast? When he was the ruler of Pakistan, India was the vitamin that kept his nationalist immunity system intact. As an exile too, he needs India to intensify the fantasy of a glorious homecoming. What's new? And why should India be afraid?

Or, is India so fragile an idea that can be undone by the polemic of a pamphleteer or the rhetoric of an unemployed dictator? By parading its paranoia at the slightest provocation of two inconsequential individuals struggling for attention, India has undervalued its own freedom. When tolerance and maturity should have been the traits on display, India took a leaf from the book of totalitarianism.

The enemy was a prerequisite for the survival of those closed societies that dreaded questions. If there was none, they manufactured one from their paranoia. The prisons that flourish beyond the glitz of the Chinese shopping malls tell the enduring story of how countries that have no faith in their own freedom curtail the freedom of those who challenge them. India is a different country, and in its political culture, far removed from places like Beijing and Pyongyang, Havana and Caracas. India can do without legitimising the struggle of Roy, whose Guardian-variety dissent is mainly meant for international consumption; and remember, the market value of the apostles of the wretched and the dispossessed has not depreciated in the Left-leaning Norwegian Committee. Her freedom to play out her dissent, no matter how outrageous or misplaced it is, only complements the freedom of India. A Roy on trial for sedition can happen only in a country as horrible as the one portrayed in her own pamphlets. India is not that country, and it should not be even scared of Musharraf. We can do without bogeymen-or bogeygirls.